Glen Allsopp 👾

Created (500K+ weekly users 🙏). Now proudly working @ahrefs. Somehow mentioned on TechCrunch, Forbes, FT, BBC etc.

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

I have some big personal news: Detailed has been acquired by Ahrefs. 🎉

I'm also super excited to be joining the company to work on marketing and product.

A few months ago Tim Soulo invited me to speak at their upcoming conference in San Diego, Ahrefs Evolve.

I brought up an idea I hinted at on the Ahrefs podcast last year, and 24 hours later we were on a call about me potentially joining the company.

If you follow me you'll know I'm obsessed with all things strategy and research in this space - and more importantly, doing the work - so to get to do that on a much bigger scale is genuinely a dream of mine.

The Detailed SEO Extension and all current features will remain free.

In five years it has grown to 450,000+ weekly users, which I'm incredibly grateful for. We'll add new features at some point, while keeping in place what's already there.

Detailed will remain a separate brand and I'll continue to personally update relevant projects there.

My focus now is on product and tool ideas, research reports, marketing insights and everything actionable we can share to help grow your business.

Finally, a HUGE thanks to everyone who has read and shared my work over the years for this to even be a possibility. 🙏

I'm really excited for what's next.

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

Here’s one of my favorite use cases for the Ahrefs API.

I automate pulling new links to 180+ sites, then use AI to surface insights & trends.

It’s great for learning about new awards, publications, communities, marketing efforts, and more in one place.

Not forgetting it can also be a great source of content inspiration.

(Not to copy anyone, but to see if there’s an angle for a unique or better take, especially from adjacent but non-competing industries.)

What’s really cool is that you can do this without going over your API budget.

To check 180 sites I used ~67K API units (out of 100K available on Lite—there’s more on other plans) to check their newest links from the past 3 months.

For full transparency: I pulled back up to 50 rows per brand, don't require traffic stats, and not all of them hit that 50 row limit.

(If every site maxed out you could check 95 for the same unit costs, or 142 if I used all Lite plan availability.)

From there I filter the data in a ton of different ways: which brands link between each other, which individual domains link out to the most brands, where do big media brands link to the most, etc.

I love doing manual checks, but when AI has the linking page title, URL, and anchor text, it can spot some interesting trends.

Analyzing ~200 rows of links from sites I’m most interested in (Fast Company, NYTimes, etc.) cost just $0.19 using Claude Opus 4.8.

Hopefully there’s enough here to inspire you to try something similar — even if it’s on a smaller scale — but there’s a link in the graphic if you would like some more details.

Let me know if this is interesting and I’ll happily share some more personal use cases 🙌

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

Last week Ahrefs rolled out some updates that should dramatically increase the speed at which we detect and label domains as spam.

I know this isn't a "glamorous" announcement, but it's important, and should help address the frustrations I know some people had.

Thanks to @_Oliver_Fish, @JoyanneHawkins, @Charles_SEO, and everyone else who reported it.

It's not perfect yet — there are still some sites I've flagged to get rechecked — but things should start getting significantly better now.

When marked as spam, these domains will not be sent in Backlink-related emails, but you can also filter them in Site Explorer and backlink-specific reports, as shown in my screenshot.

Saving your filters as presets means you don't have to keep reapplying them.

This isn't something I would typically post but I’ve seen a lot of people discussing it, so I wanted to confirm we’ve been listening to all of the feedback.

Thank you! 🙌

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@suganthan @detailedcom Good news. Terms have been updated here: https://t.co/cdXmht7zSJ

Thanks for your patience Suganthan. DMing you now as well.

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

Ahrefs' Domain Rating endpoint is now free! You don't even need an API key.

I built a tool to show it off (and possibly send you some visitors?) 🎉

The idea is simple: Enter your site, reveal your DR, and find other sites with the same score.

If you like, you can also submit your domain to be one of the recommendations, and potentially get some visitors sent your way.

See it in action over on detailed dotcom /dr/

Of course, I'm not expecting this to go viral in any way, but you might reach a few marketers and webmasters in your niche.

The idea is a little cheesy, I know, but I had to test out the new endpoint myself.

Simplified, DR aims to show the strength of a website's backlink profile compared to other sites in the Ahrefs database.

It works on a 0-100 scale, and can be useful for quick competitor benchmarking, link prospecting, outreach prioritization, and more.

To give some context on the numbers...

Wikipedia: DR 97
Ahrefs: DR 91
YCombinator: DR 91
Tinder: DR 82
Detailed: DR 73

Even if you're not technically savvy, it's still super easy to use. Point your AI assistant of choice straight to the Ahrefs API docs, and it will figure out the rest.

Hopefully you find this new endpoint useful in your workflows! 🙌

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@roleandtell @timsoulo Ah, "Does the site exist? Did you possibly make a typo?" is just for people who may have typed their domains in wrong.

It's not there to imply the site doesn't exist — I can improve the wording there 🤝. Technically your DR is 0.1 at the moment.

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@roleandtell @timsoulo What's the site? :)

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

That's not something I would ever intentionally preach or share. I like to think the post above is pretty clear that it's just a representation of a sites backlink profile, compared to other sites.

Or do you that by mentioning something like link prospecting, some people might believe that would help them sell more links (or similar)?

Either way, I can always do a better job to point people in the right direction / dispel myths. I will add a more descriptive note about what DR is and isn't on that page. Thanks for the nudge 🤝

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@gqzjfykqk4 Typo maybe? Feel free to DM if you're sure.

Can also check here: https://t.co/S0RdYSkS9K

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@bygregorr The matching is mostly just for fun (though I would love if some people made connections out of it).

Keep in mind it's only looking at sites I seeded it with / people submitted, not the entirety of Ahrefs 🤝

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@Adoubleagent Approved you almost instantly, but letting you know a little late 😅

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@moqaiser Thanks man!

Do you have an example use case where you would want to use it commercially (even if it's different to what you're building)? :)

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@suganthan @detailedcom Pulled for free and you don't need any kind of API key.

About to jump on a call but I will clarify what is required if you're adding it to a tool a.s.a.p.

(Will ask now, but might take a little while to reply)

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@GrindstoneSEO @timsoulo @ahrefs Agent A doesn't consume Ahrefs API units.

Note this might be subject to change / limits in the future (I genuinely don't know — have not been in those discussions) but that's the current status. 🤝

[Tim Soulo 🇺🇦 @timsoulo]

Once you build your first AI app, you're done for. Every single process in your day starts looking like something you should automate.

Glen Allsopp [ @ViperChill ] (Head of Marketing Strategy & Research at @Ahrefs) showed me a perfect example of this.

He used Agent A for competitive backlink research. Got exactly what he needed. Then typed: "please turn this into an application." Three minutes later he had a reusable tool that analyzes backlinks across multiple websites in 20 seconds.

Cost per run: less than one cent.

Then he did the same with his task management workflow. Then with content research. Then with marketing copy. Then with AI visibility reports. Now almost every part of his workflow has a custom tool built around it

So I invited Glen on Ahrefs Podcast to demo all of these tools live on screen, walk through how he built them with AI and what he learned in the process.

Here's what we covered:

🔸 Why only 10% of marketers have tried building anything with AI
🔸 The "imagination gap" that stops most people from even starting
🔸 How a conversation with AI becomes a reusable marketing tool in 3 minutes
🔸 Why the cheapest AI model is often the right one for marketing tasks
🔸 Why your personal task manager should be built by you, not bought
🔸 Why copying someone's AI app is just the starting point, not a finished product
🔸 Why having marketing expertise matters more now, not less

Watch/Listen here 👇

https://t.co/mQeJsERIdY

P.S. If you enjoy these deep dives, a quick "Like" or comment helps us convince more great guests to come on the show. Thanks! 🙏

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@smart_egg Only available for certain sites at the minute before rolling out more broadly 🤝

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

Woah.

Quite a few limitations at first (no clicks, limited rollout) but this is a step in the right direction. Very cool.

More details over here: https://t.co/95lmFwJnc7

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

h/t to @rustybrick where I saw this on SEL: https://t.co/lUWhxtavLk

Also @brodieseo covered on his LinkedIn https://t.co/CDNAY7iYdC

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@gaganghotra_ 😬😬

[Glen Allsopp 👾 @ViperChill]

@vadymhimself @timsoulo @ahrefs From the study, "To clarify, “YouTube mentions” refer to any time a brand name crops up in a YouTube video title, transcript, or description"

Lots more insights in the full reports 🤝

https://t.co/Br2NejZV5i